Russia's Yamal Gas Development to Last Over 50 Years

The development of the oil and gas fields in Russia's Yamal Peninsula and the neighboring Kara Sea will last over 50 years and cost several hundreds billion dollars, a Dutch natural gas trading company said in a presentation.

The assessment was presented Nov. 6 by GasTerra NV Chief Executive Gertjan Lankhorst during a visit to Moscow by a Dutch delegation, which also included Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN).

The delegation made a pitch to help develop Yamal's gas resources, most of which controlled by OAO Gazprom (GAZP.LN), to officials including Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko.

"Phased development and production of the Yamal Peninsula and Kara Sea fields will happen over a time span of more than half a century," the presentation sent to Dow Jones Newswires by GasTerra Thursday, said.

"Preliminary estimates of total investments for developing the gas and oil fields and supporting infrastructure are of the order of several hundred billion U.S. dollars," it said.

"The estimated undeveloped gas resource potential is over 30 trillion cubic meters, equivalent to 45 years of future gas supplies at Russia's present rate of total annual production," the GasTerra presentation said.

"Rotterdam could also become a principal destination for liquids to be exported" from the Yamal and Kara Sea fields it said.

GasTerra also said Dutch experiences such as the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij, or NAM, operations at the giant Groningen onshore gas field could be used in the Yamal project. NAM is jointly-owned by Shell and ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM).

Dutch dredging contractors such as Van Oord NV or Royal Boskalis Westminster Group could also bring valued skills to the fields, it said.

The Dutch proposals to help the Russian projects were made under the auspices of the Russia-Netherlands Joint Business Dialogue forum. Its energy committee is co-chaired by Lankhorst and Victor Vekselberg, an executive director at BP PLC (BP) joint-venture TNK-BP Holding (TNBP.RS).